Rubus hupehensis Oliver

A prostrate or climbing evergreen shrub, with round, slender, dark-coloured stems, thinly furnished with a cobweb-like down when young, and armed with a few small decurved spines. Leaves simple, oblong-lanceolate; 3 to 41⁄2 in. long, by about 11⁄2 in. wide; the base rounded, the apex long-pointed, margins finely toothed; veins in nine to twelve pairs; upper surface smooth except for tiny bristles along the veins, lower one covered with a close grey felt; leaf-stalk 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 in. long. Flowers usually three to seven in short, terminal, very glandular racemes, of little or no beauty; calyx covered with grey felt like the leaves; petals soon falling. Fruits described as at first red, then black-purple, austere.

Native of Central China; originally described in 1899, but introduced to gardens by Wilson from Hupeh in 1907. The foliage is handsome, and distinct from that of any other cultivated species except R. malifolius; the inflorescence also is conspicuous in its glandular hairiness.